Pathfinder 5

I got super inspired which is why this came out so far, also the lines like {this} I decided to use for when the characters can't understand the words but the reader can as a test to see if this works out for the story.

Pathfinder 5

Chapter 7: Cultural Exchange

David was currently working on a device in the small machine shop, on a table lay the blue plastic casing and buttons along with some electronics he was putting together. Thankfully what he was building wasn’t too complicated, hell he bet a high schooler could put this together. He double checked the electronics as he tested out the connections.

“AVI is the hard drive filled with the music from the first contact package?” David asked as he started to assemble the device.

“I’ve finished with the download it holds all of the music from the basic first contact package as well as the ones you suggested.”

“Cool,” David grabbed the adhesive as he started to glue the pieces in place. He really had to be careful as this was strong stuff and although he was wearing gloves he didn’t want to get them glued to the table. It was an hour later until he finally had finished with the device, he had woken up this day to the finished case and had started on the electronics after breakfast.

“There that should do it,” He sat back stretching out feeling his body pop in a few places. He paused as he looked at it. It was actually pretty simple, the power supply was an old fashioned electric battery that should last for about a week of none-stop play. The small holes in the side indicated the speakers on the round edges. There was a small display with a row of buttons under it with symbols that any human would know.

That was the problem however and that only humans might know what they meant.

David got up and looked for a piece of paper and a pen and marker. He had been thinking about this while making it and decided t make as basic instructions as possible. He placed the dots from the math quiz under each button to number then. Now it was his turn to try and show what each number meant.

There was a pause before with number one dot he wrote the play button and then a musical notes. Then for stop he did the same only with a circle and line through it. For each button he tried to come up with simple designs on what each button did. It wasn’t easy as he had to try and think how would an alien view the images. By the end of it he felt it was as good as things were going to get and sighed as he shrugged.

“Well I guess that’s everything,” he tested the device out playing the message and then also skipped that to listen to some music. He tested out all the buttons before powering it down. Thankfully it was small and light enough for one of the drones to take back. He got the box as he placed the math questions the alien gave him with his completed sections. He had already scanned and copied them anyway. He would have given the book back as well but there was no room with the music player.

David also grabbed the next set of math this time it was multiplication and division. He also put in a table of known elements only with images of each element given they couldn’t read the language yet. It still had the short form of single or two letters. This however had to be folded up as it was pretty big to get all those images on there.

There were a few other things in there, one was a few diagrams of the Sol system with colonies both on the ground and in space listed. There also was the star burst like pattern that showed the location of Earth’s sun using fourteen known solar pulses. The final paper held an image of two humans one was the male and female form with some graphs for size. The other was the famous image that Leonardo Da Vinci made of the human body in that circle.

Placing everything in order he placed them into the box and called up one of the drones, he wanted to keep Sleepy by the cottage as he called in Grumpy for delivery.

“So while we wait for Grumpy to show up did the drones find anything interesting?” David asked as he just wanted to kill some time.

“The drones have mapped out much of the forest, there has been some hostile attempts on the drone from the local fauna and flora.”

“Great hostile plants,” David sighed remembering an earlier planet he went to that had that same problem. “No damages then since they would have been recalled and you would have told me if one went down.”

“Correct, there is one thing that stood out.”

“Oh?” That got his attention.

“A structure was found not far from this location.”

“Let me see,” David walked to one of the panels on the wall as an image of what looked like an abandoned castle was shown from the drones point of view. “Huh...well that’s worth exploring in person, how much of this did the drones get?”

“Their primary task was collection topographical data so only rudimentary scans were taken.”

David sighed, even though AVI was an advance computer program it was still just a program and couldn’t think for itself or outside the box. Unless he ordered the computer to do something it would just follow standard protocols or programming until told otherwise.

“Alright pull Happy off that duty and assign it to me, after the delivery I’m going out there to check on that place and I want Happy as backup. That place looks old and I don’t want something to fall on me trapping me in there or just killing me.”

“Compliance.”

One of these days when he got back home he was going to hunt down however programmed the computer to say that. He has asked but the computer didn’t know, it was just a really odd thing to say and it was bugging him on why someone would program a word like that.
He heard the ship’s hatch up top open as one of the drones was lowered down.

“Time for a mail call,” David grinned.

-Outside Golden Oaks-

Two mares were currently on their way to the library this wasn’t an unusual thing as it was a public library but these two weren’t going for a book, in fact they were asked to come. A grey earth pony mare with long dark mane dressed only with a bow-tie walked alone her roommate. This was a white unicorn with electric blue mane and her ever present shades on her eyes.

They were Octavia Melody and Vinyl Scratch AKA DJ Pon-3.

“So why was it that Pinkie said we had to come here again?” Melody asked with her cultured voice to Vinyl.

“No idea Octy,” She shrugged. “Pink’s just came in said that Twilight needed some help with something music I think, she was talking kind of fast so it was hard to make out.”

Octavia sighed, “Well might as well I was trying to come up with some new music but I’ve hit a wall.”

“Oh damn that sucks when it happens,” Vinyl could sympathize as she hated it when she couldn’t think of a really cool new song to play for a party or club.

“Hey you two,” A new voice called out as both of them looked to see another mare. This was a green unicorn that Octavia knew well from having to play a few times with her.

“Hello Lyra, did you get a visit from Pinkie Pie as well?” Octavia asked her fellow musician.

“Yeah it was kind odd,” Lyra fell in step with the others. “I can’t remember Twilight ever asking for me, I thought she forgot about me to be honest.”

“Wait you knew Twilight from before or something?” Vinyl asked as this was the first she heard of it. She didn’t know Lyra as good as Octavia as she only knew the unicorn through her roommate but she seemed nice enough to Vinyl.

“We were in school together before I moved out of Canterlot to Ponyville.” She explained.

The three soon found themselves at the front door as Octavia gently opened it, it was always a bit odd on what to do with the library since
Twilight moved in since it was both a public building and her home some ponies weren’t sure on the proper way to handle it.

“Hello?” She called out as the three came in.

“Oh are you the one that Pinkie asked to meet with me?” Twilight had been looking through a few books as they came in a she marked her spot before meeting them.

“Yes, I am Octavia and this is Vinyl,” The mare stated as Lyra walked forward with a smile on her face.

“Hey Twilight long time no see,” Lyra said.

“Uh...yeah, it’s great seeing...you,” Twilight was trying to search for who this was, she did seem very familiar but she couldn’t place it.

Lyra’s smile dropped a bit as she looked at Twilight’s reaction. “Twilight...what’s my name?”

“Uh...” Twilight’s eyes darted back and forth it was on the tip of her tongue.

“Oh for Celestia’s sake,” Lyra threw her hooves up in the air. “It’s Lyra, Lyra Heartstrings! We went to school together with Lemon Hearts, Minuette, Twinkleshine and Moon Dancer!”

“Oh!” It finally clicked for Twilight as now she remembered them all. “I’m so sorry, I remember now!”

Lyra sighed, “Same old Twilight.”

“So how long have you’ve been living in Ponyville?” Twilight said trying to salvage things.

Lyra gave her a level look, “About a year before you showed up.”

“Oh...sorry,” Twilight really felt bad about all of this, not remembering her and basically ignoring her for all this time. She really wanted to make things up for her, maybe this could be a new friendship report on how to rebuild old friendships but first on to business.

“Well I’d like to talk to you after but first I needed your help.” Twilight led them into the basement of the library as they walked down the stairs. They looked around the place as none of them even knew that library even had a basement.

There were machines and equipment that none of them could place around the large room, some science equipment and spell crafting resources and all of it neatly set up. There was a chalkboard and a dozen papers pinned to one wall. As they got closer they saw numbers and letters but there were other things on the papers that they couldn’t make out.

“This is what I was hoping to get your opinion on,” Twilight showed them that on a small table was a little blue...something.
“What is it?” Octavia asked not sure what it was. It looked like something Vinyl might have but electronics wasn’t her strong point.
“It’s a music player of a sort,” Twilight told them as Vinyl got closer to take a look.

“This little thing?” The white unicorn asked rising up her shades a bit. “This thing doesn’t look like much, heck my equipment is the best sound system this side of Canterlot and that takes up a lot more space than this.”

“Well trust me this came from a lot further away than Canterlot,” Twilight took a breath. “Okay what I’m going to tell you three you have to swear to keep it secret at least for now.”

“Why?” Lyra asked not sure she liked where this was going.

“Okay this is very important and when I figured out the instructions on this and it started playing I knew I needed the opinions of experts in music,” Twilight started to explain. “So I had Pinkie get me the best musicians she knew in Ponyville.”

“You see I know of music but I’m in no ways an expert,” Twilight rounded the machine. “I need your help to help me figure out the culture behind this music.”

“Well what is? Gryphon, Minotaur, do Diamond Dogs have music?” Lyra looked at the other two for that last one. She couldn’t remember hearing any Diamond Dog music before as that race was a bit isolated from every other race. The other two mares only shrugged, they never heard if they had music either.

“It’s an unknown species,” Twilight knew it was a risk telling them but she needed professionals to help her understand the feelings and meanings behind the music. She was going to give her report to the Princesses soon and she wanted it to be thorough. Her friends weren’t experts and so her plan for Pinkie to bring her some experts.

“Unknown?” All three music mares asked at once.

“Just Pinkie Promise that you won’t tell anypony what I’m going to tell you,” Twilight begged them. “This is most likely one of the most important moments of all of Equestrian history, even the history of our entire world. I already had one mistake happen and I don’t want another so I’m begging you to please trust me on this.”

The three looked at each other, Octavia and Lyra felt a bit uncertain but Vinyl looked interested so she stepped up.

“Okay I’m in.”

Octavia sighed if her friend was in then she would be in too and stepped forward. Lyra had to think about it, this seemed really important and it was a little intimidating but part of her was curious on what this unknown race had as music. If this was some kind of old recording found of an extinct race or contact with a new one, well that might actually be pretty cool. Taking a breath she stepped forward.

All three of them recited the Pinkie Promise not to tell whatever Twilight was going to tell them.

“Okay girls this device was delivered to me earlier today by, well I guess the scientific term would be...an extra equestrian life form.”

There was a pregnant pause in the room before Lyra broke the silence. “A-are you saying that...this is alien?”

Twilight nodded her head as all three mares’ eyes enlarged even Vinyl’s and she was a hard one to surprise. Twilight started to explain things to them. “You see a few days ago we learned that an alien ship landed in the Everfree, we’ve made contact and slowly have been learning more about the alien. The alien sent me this along with some other stuff.”

The mares looked at the papers near the device on the wall and suddenly the strange script took on a whole new meaning.

“I...I think I might need to sit down,” Octavia sat on a stool nearby as she was feeling light headed.

“I might join you,” Lyra never knew Twilight to joke around, heck she was one of the most serious ponies she knew and if Twilight was saying this it had to be true.

“Wicked,” Vinyl grinned as she looked at the device with more interest. “How does this sucker work?”

“Well I found the power button here,” Twilight hit a red button before hitting one with a sideways triangle on it. “This is the play button.”

Suddenly music came from the device, a chorus of string instruments boomed to life as Octavia’s head snapped up and her ears took in the music. It flowed with a sense of power behind it as she closed her eyes and in her mind she was sitting in a grand theatre to a whole orchestra playing the piece.

The music picked up and it was like a whirlwind of music surrounding them.

“Wow that’s amazing,” Lyra blinked as she took in the music she had never heard of music like this. It was close to classical style but she had never heard of this kind of artist before in her studies.

“What do you think?” Twilight asked Octavia.

“Shhhh!” Octavia shushed them all as she took in the music still.

“Oh man we’ve lost Octavia,” Vinyl whispered to them. “She gets like this when she’s really into her music, kind of dives right into it.”

Octavia ignored them as she lost herself into the music, it was like falling into a tornado, then it was like gliding on the wings of a Pegasus in flight before going to a more upbeat version like someone was trying to describe a dance in music.

After a few minutes Twilight paused it, “There’s a lot more to that song but what do you think so far?”

Octavia sighed out, “Brilliant, whoever made this was brilliant. You said there’s more?”

“Oh yes, I think I can made a recording with a record player if you want.”

“Please, I would ever so much enjoy hearing more of that.”

Twilight nodded, “As long as you can give me your thoughts on it.” She turned and looked at a sheet she had prepared. Thankfully even though the little display was in an alien language there were numbers before each song which she could read. So she made notes on the different types of music associated with the numbers. She clicked what was apparently a skip button to get to the correct number.

“Here try this one out.”

An electronic beat started to kick things off as Vinyl got to bobbing her head with the tunes especially when the beat picked itself up.

“Oh yeah now this is my kind of music!” Vinyl shouted out as she got into the groove of the music. “This is way wicked stuff I can so see playing this at the next party. If these aliens know how to party I think we’ll get along great.”

“So they like to party from the music?” Twilight asked.

“Oh yeah, this is something you can only rock out to in a club I bet,” Vinyl was by this point swaying her body slightly to the music.

“Interesting,” Twilight paused it to Vinyl’s disappointment. “Well here is another but it’s in another language so I don’t know what he’s saying.”

“He?” Lyra asked.

“Well it sounds like a male’s voice to me,” Twilight skipped to the next song.

A soulful guitar was heard before a matching voice sang with it.

{I hurt myself today}
{To see if I still feel}
{I’ve focused on the pain}
{The only thing that’s real}
{The needle tears a hole}

“He sounds really sad,” Lyra felt her ears go back as she listened to the song, she couldn’t tell what was being said but the singer sounded like they were singing about something painful to them. A piano started to play along with the guitar at this point.

The song has a slow building point as it eventually leveled off and then picked up slowly again only a bit more powerful this time around.

“I would say that this culture has a very deep emotional tie with their music,” Octavia said hearing the sorrow in the alien voice.

“Man this is depressing, you got anything more upbeat?” Vinyl asked.

Twilight looked through her notes there was one that she marked that sounded a bit upbeat to her. “Okay let’s try this one next but I think it’s in a different language than what we’ve seen so far.”

“Really, can you tell?” Lyra had only heard the one song so far.

Twilight nodded her head, “It sounds a lot different so if this is a representation of their entire culture than they might have more than one language so I think they would put in more than just music from one part of their culture if they were trying to share their entire culture.”

Lyra thought about it and nodded, “That makes sense.”

There was a slow melody with a female singer that started up.

{Hast du etwas Zeit für mich}
{Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich}
{Von 99 Luftballons}
{Auf ihrem Weg zum Horizont}
{Denkst du vielleicht g'rad an mich}
{Dann singe ich ein Lied für dich}
{Von 99 Luftballons}

“Okay that’s definitely a different language,” Octavia had a good ear for sounds and that sounded totally different than what she was hearing before.

There was a clapping sound hear in the break of the song it wasn’t like hooves clapping together but it was similar. Then the music picked up again to a very upbeat song even though they didn’t know what the person was singing it sounded very happy to them.

Lyra tried singing along but the unfamiliar words were hard to grasp but she smiled while trying some of the words were kind of fun to say.
They went through a few more songs as they gave their opinions on it, it seemed that this culture much like their own had a wide array of styles of music. Although it was hard to say how close some of them were to each other. It was difficult to pin point is some songs were older or newer than the others. Octavia suggested that the classical pieces had to be older as none of the electronic sounds were in them and would have incorporated them in some way if those had been around.

Currently a piano and electronic guitar were playing as the guitar made this soaring like melody before a smooth male voice sang out.

{Sitting here wasted and wounded at this old piano}
{Trying hard to capture the moment this morning I don't know}
{'Cause a bottle of vodka is still lodged in my head}
{And some blond gave me nightmares, think that she's still in my bed}
{As I dream about movies}
{They won't make of me when I'm dead}

The mares listened to the music, Twilight hadn’t been sure on what kind to classify it so she had asked their opinion on it. The mares started to sway in time with the song being played as they listened to the smooth vocals of the male singer.

“I feel like I should sitting with a stallion or something next to me,” Lyra blushed a bit at the imagery.

“Oh yeah this is total make out music,” Vinyl grinned.

“This is definitely a more romantic sounding song,” Octavia agreed.

Twilight took down notes, so far they had found that that the aliens seemed to have all the basic emotions that they did, which was great. The fact that they could not only convey emotions into their music but that ponies could understand it said that there was some common ground between their cultures. This excited her as it was proof that a friendship might just be possible between their races.

She looked over her notes of the music so far, they were a big help with her research in this as they picked up on things that she didn’t. It was also very interesting listening to music that no one on their world had ever heard before. She began to wonder what their art was like next.

Twilight was starting to think that maybe she could send back examples of pony art next? If she couldn’t send songs then this was the best idea, in fact there was a book on the history of Equestrian art that she could send. Once again she felt torn on sending him another book but this was important and once again she could ask for it back.

It was just that she hated not signing out the books properly ever since she took on the role as librarian for the town she had kept things well organized and made sure books were properly signed out. It was only because of such a extreme circumstance.

Oh! She could give him a library card!

She wasn’t sure how to give her own examples of music as nothing was as small and compact as the device in the room with them.

Twilight looked at the small blue device, she wasn’t sure what exactly it was made out of, it looked to be some kind of plastic but not like any she had ever seen before. Plastic was only invented a decade ago and not many ponies used it yet. She had to fight every scientific instinct she had to open it up and try to figure out how it worked but this was too important.

This was a gift and she didn’t want to break it or be unable to put it back together after words. The device was so simple looking and yet by this point it seemed to hold much more music than any record player could. How did it store the music? How did play without as far as she could tell moving parts as it was totally silent inside? How did the little screen change like it did?

She had scanned it for magic and yet again like the other objects from before, there was zero magic trace. This was forming a strange theory in her mind and that was, what if the aliens had no magic ability or were from a world that lacked any trace of a mana field? Which should have been unheard of as the mana field of their planet was where they gathered all their magical abilities.

It was impossible to think of a world without magic, even the other races had their own type of magic users. From Gryphon battle mages, to Minotaur mystics and even her friend Zecora being a shaman had her own magic. Ponies had the most magical potential but still every single being on their world in some form or another interacted with the mana field.

If they didn’t have one then these beings were truly alien in a way that she had never thought of before. Still it was something to hold off until they could establish a better way to communicate.

Twilight and the others continued listening to the alien music well into the afternoon as they enjoyed and tried to make sense of this mysterious new culture they were exposed to.

Next up Chapter 8: The Castle

List of Music in order:
Ludwig Van Beethoven’s 5th symphony in C Minor
Deadmau5 - Ghost N’ Stuff
Johnny Cash – Hurt
Nena – 99 Luftballons
Bon Jovi – Bed of Roses